Mapping soil health indicators with EU soil database

Due to increasing population pressure and severe climate change, soil health receives more and more attention. Soil is not only the source of food, but also a major carbon pool that can serve to mitigate climate change. Historically, the soil is mainly treated as the sum of dirt, water and nutrients, a medium of growing. The assessment of soil is largely based on its physical and chemical properties and focuses on crop production, underestimating the biological nature of it. As our analytical ability and understanding of soil advance, soil biological processes are more and more appreciated, though the quantification of soil health is still dominated by chemical and physical parameters because of the lack of functional knowledge and effective methods. This project attempts to monitor soil as a living system, with the focus on aboveground vegetation cover, soil biomes, and soil organic carbon. These three parameters are not only mapped as indicators of soil health, but also studied in the perspective of soil carbon cycle, to further our understanding of the interrelation between plants and soil, as well as provide guidance for soil management.